Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 30 May 2019

Public Accounts Committee

2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2017
Chapter 22 - Irish Fiscal Advisory Council

9:00 am

Photo of Catherine ConnollyCatherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I hear what Mr. Moran is saying but I fundamentally disagree with him. That is for another forum. It is difficult to wade through all this information, although I know and appreciate all of the work that went into it. It is premised on a completely wrong ideology, however. How can any Department say we are sound when we have that level of homelessness and such a serious crisis in housing? One simply cannot get a house to rent in Galway. Policy is forcing the market up to unsustainable levels of rent. We know that. The very policy of the Government, including the housing assistance payment and the other payments, is forcing rents upwards unsustainably. I would love it if the Department of Finance began to look at that. Perhaps I am taking unfair advantage of Mr. Moran in this regard but I come from a city in which the housing crisis is worse than in Dublin, in which the health crisis is worse than anywhere, and where a hospital is falling apart but Mr Moran is telling me our economy is sound. There is something wrong with that definition of an economy.

Moving on to specific questions, what is the second state aid case? The first was that regarding Apple.

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